The Note In The Pocket of Hamas
- nhkobrin
- Apr 9
- 3 min read
Hamas' Mutilating Attempt to Humiliate Us
By
Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin, PhD
Why is the unconscious—especially in relation to terrorism like that perpetrated by Hamas—so routinely avoided in mainstream analysis? There are several interwoven reasons, psychological, cultural, and even political, for this avoidance.
The Terror of Seeing Too Much
To examine unconscious motivations—especially those that include mutilation, fantasies of annihilation, and symbolic destruction of the maternal—means confronting something dark within humanity itself. It implicates not only the terrorist but our own unconscious vulnerabilities. It's much easier to reduce terrorism to "politics" or "ideology" than to face what I have called -- “the global Wi-Fi of maternal terror.”
The Split Between Western Rationalism and Depth Psychology
Western culture, shaped by Enlightenment rationalism, often suppresses psychoanalytic perspectives in favor of linear, surface-level explanations. When confronted with grotesque violence, like the Hamas massacre on October 7, mainstream commentators often focus on "root causes" like poverty or occupation—real issues, yes, but insufficient to explain decapitation, mutilation, rape, and the extraction of organs. These acts are saturated with symbolic, unconscious meaning.
Terror as a Psychic Hook
The note found in the Hamas terrorist’s pocket—with instructions to “uproot hearts and livers”—is not only strategic terror but unconscious acting out. These are not just tactics to scare the population—they are enactments of unresolved inner conflicts projected onto the “infidel,” whose body becomes the canvas for rage and dismemberment.
The “Diseased” Other, the Jew
We also saw this ideology of "the diseased other" in the thinking of the Nazis; this kind of paranoid thinking is very common and the only way they can extricate the diseased Other is through violently expunging the contaminant from the body of the group and in this case once again it is the Jew. It is paranoia persecuted perversion of having to purify the group self through the annihilation of the Jew. In fact, this was the Shoah. It is nothing new and it is routine in paranoia which we should hasten to note is a psychosis.. we have also seen it in the Farhud, all other pograms as well as the Inquisition.
Maternal Terror and the Desecration of the Body
Psychoanalytically, the image of the mother’s body as whole, containing, and safe is central to psychic coherence. To mutilate the body—especially the symbolic maternal body—is to attack the very foundation of human relational life. In hyper-shame cultures, the repression of maternal bonding and its replacement with violent initiation rituals also of bonding, leaves a legacy of fragmentation, envy, and rage.
This is why beheadings and mutilations have such a disorganizing effect on the Western psyche: they shatter the unconscious fantasy of a world that still holds the mother intact. In Arab and Muslim societies especially those steeped in literalist interpretations of Islam, this fragmentation through mutilation, is not only enacted but ritualized—terror as sacrament.
Why October 7 Was Predictable to Those Who Read the Unconscious and know the history of JIHAD
The atrocities of October 7 were not aberrations. They were the logical consequence of a culture marinated in unresolved trauma, where humiliation, shame, and rage cannot be metabolized and are instead externalized. That the terrorists needed a note to remember their "spiritual" mission underscores not only their commitment but their psychic fragility.
They are poorly put together—psychically disintegrated. To refuse to understand the unconscious motor of their rage is to remain unarmed in this psychological war.
Passover as a Counter-Narrative and an antidote to Jihadi terror
The Seder as a symbol is both timely and profound. It stands in stark contrast to the rituals of dismemberment. The Seder orders chaos as the word in Hebrew means; it ritualizes memory; it affirms life. The culture of jihad glorifies death and dismemberment; the culture of Pesach insists on liberation through memory, through relationship, through the preservation of the human form.
To truly defeat terrorism, we must be willing to confront not just the tactics and strategies, but the deep violent unconscious fantasies that drive them. This is the terrain that psychoanalysis—especially when fused with political awareness—can map with precision.
Let my people go – – bring them home now – – made the memory of those murdered be a blessing, may those who are recovering may their healing help reaffirm their life
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